Guiding a challenged Giants roster through a rough spring, Bruce Bochy already is having to hold back the emotions arising from his final go-round after a lifetime in the game.

Bruce Bochy doesn’t want the Giants’ 2019 season to be seen as a farewell tour. That would make the manager, who will end his baseball career this year, the center of attention. He wants this season to be all about the team.

Well, that’s impossible.

Bochy has meant too much to a club that had never won a championship in San Francisco until after he arrived in 2007. That had played in three World Series since its move to San Francisco, but lost them all. That had a shiny new ballpark but no championship banners beyond those that were won in New York.

Editor's note

This is the first installment of a season-long five-part series covering Bruce Bochy’s final season as Giants manager.

So, yes, Bochy’s 13th and final season, while unlikely to end with another parade, or even a single playoff game, will be a time to celebrate the only Giants manager besides John McGraw in New York in the early 1900s to win three World Series.

Just five weeks into what will be his 25th season as a big-league manager, guiding a challenged roster through a rough spring and into an uncertain summer, Bochy already is having to hold back the emotions arising from his final go-round after a lifetime in the game.

It was no surprise when Bochy announced in February he’s retiring at season’s end. He’s 64. He has nothing to prove. He’s a lock for the Hall of Fame. He’s going out on his terms.

Still, maintaining his usual stoic demeanor hasn’t been easy.

“It’s coming to an end,” Bochy said as the season started, “so I’m going to savor every bit of this year.”

Those were his words hours before Opening Day in San Diego, his longtime home, where he also managed his first Opening Day in 1996.

San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy spends time in his memento-filled office before playing the Los Angeles Dodgers at Oracle Park in San Francisco on April 29.

(Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle | San Francisco Chronicle)

It was just one of many last hurrahs that have been piling up.

Final exhibition game at Peoria Stadium, Bochy’s spring-training home for 12 years as the Padres’ manager. Check.

Final exhibition game at Scottsdale Stadium, where he spent 13 training camps with the Giants. Check.

And then Opening Day at Petco Park, with Madison Bumgarner, a key to all three World Series titles, on the mound. He’d pitch splendidly that day in a Giants loss.

“Seeing Bumgarner out there,” Bochy said in a moment of reflection. “What this man’s done for us, for me. Those are good things.”

Final Opening Day. Check.

The Gianst’ Madison Bumgarner pitches against the San Diego Padres on Opening Day at Petco Park.

(Rob Leiter / MLB Photos | San Francisco Chronicle)

Back at Oracle Park eight days later, the Giants had their home opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. During introductions, Bochy received the loudest and longest cheer, a rare tribute for a manager. There was another standing ovation when he threw the ceremonial first pitch.

Overwhelming, he would say later. “It’s something I’ll never forget,” he said. “It blew me away, to be honest.”

Former third-base coach Tim Flannery, a friend since 1983 when they were Padres teammates, was struck by his reaction.

“It was the first time I think I ever seen tears in his eyes,” Flannery said. “I’m an emotional cat. ... He’s not that way. So that was very, very important. It’s also his way of honoring the game itself, to remember what went on, to remember all that was accomplished.”

Final home opener. Check.

San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy (15) before the team's MLB opening game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Oracle Park on Friday, April 5, 2019, in San Francisco, Calif.

(Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle | San Francisco Chronicle)

Every time the Giants’ charter flight takes off from San Francisco International Airport, Bochy will check more things off his list. A big one came quickly, in mid-April, at the start of a three-city trip in Washington.

The son of a sergeant major in the U.S. Army, Bochy was born in France and was 10 when his father, Gus, was transferred to the Pentagon. The Bochys lived in Falls Church, Va., and young Bruce soon would discover big-league baseball.

“I loved RFK. I love Washington. I got to manage at RFK, and that was pretty cool,” Bochy said. The Nationals played their first three seasons in the old stadium before moving to Nationals Park in 2008. “I looked up where my dad and I sat, in the upper deck ... a buck fifty for tickets, or whatever it was.

“This is kind of where it started for me as far as really having a passion and desire to play baseball,” Bochy said.

That day in Washington also was Bochy’s 64th birthday. And Nationals Park the site of key Giants playoff games in the World Series season of 2012.

“I’ve got some great memories here,” he mused. He’d have plenty of time to reflect on them during the final game in D.C., after he was ejected in the fifth inning for arguing balls and strikes.

Final visit to Washington. Check.

San Francisco Giants' manager Bruce Bochy walks from the clubhouse to the dugout for his media availability before MLB game against Los Angeles Dodgers at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, April 29, 2019. (Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle | San Francisco Chronicle)

Next stop: Pittsburgh, where Bochy’s 2014 team had won a wild-card game.

But Bochy recalled a less happy moment at PNC Park there: the time he fell backward to avoid being hit by a foul ball, hit his head on the dugout floor and got a concussion.

Bochy hopes to avoid tributes or gifts during his final stops around the league. But when he walked into his office after the final game in Pittsburgh, a double magnum of wine stood on his desk. Its label: the photo from his 1984 baseball card, full mustache and all.

Bochy signs an autograph before the Giants play the Oakland Athletics at Oracle Park.

(Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle | San Francisco Chronicle)

A gift from the Pirates? No. From his relievers.

“It was spur of the moment,” picked up during a wine tour the night the team arrived in Pittsburgh, closer Will Smith said. “We got a bullpen barrel. ... Then it was, ‘Why don’t we get Skip (a double barrel), too?’”

Final visit to Pittsburgh. Check.

Bochy signs gives autographs before a spring baseball game against the Colorado Rockies in Scottsdale, Ariz.

(Chris Carlson / Associated Press | San Francisco Chronicle)

Small surprises and big emotions over the course of a long season could be an easy distraction for a manager. But longtime friend Flannery thinks Bochy may end up more focused and driven this year than ever before.

“I mean, 25 years managing and another 10 or so playing and the years in the minors, so he’s been going to these places for 40 years,” Flannery said. “When you know it’s your last year, I think it’s a little different. Your senses are a little more extreme. ... I guarantee there are times he gets caught into that mind-set where, ‘Wow, this is the last year,’ and then he has to shut it off to get right back in the moment.”

People would be foolish, Flannery said, “to believe that Bochy isn’t preparing to beat you and trying to pull another rabbit out of his hat. He lives for that.”

In Bochy’s final go-round, “he knows there’s nothing to lose. He’s going to play every last card he has.”

Giants manager Bruce Bochy (right) waits out a weather delay in the dugout before a game against the Washington Nationals in Washington in 2009. Bruce Bochy grew up in Falls Church, Va., and his father took Bruce to his first baseball game at RFK Stadium to watch the Washington Senators play the Cleveland Indians.

(Nick Wass / Associated Press 2009 | San Francisco Chronicle)

Back in San Francisco in late April, the Giants would meet the Yankees, another team with which Bochy has long history, including a sweep of his Padres in the 1998 World Series.

As a kid in Washington, Bochy saw a Senators-Yankees doubleheader at RFK. Two games with Mickey Mantle for the price of one.

But he found another hero that day: the Yankee who broke Giants fans’ hearts by snaring Willie McCovey’s line drive to end the 1962 World Series.

“That double-header is when I became a huge Bobby Richardson fan,” Bochy recalled. “Every time he got up, he hit a line drive. It was amazing.”

Another old Yankee, Jerry Coleman, became a popular broadcaster for Bochy’s Padres, and would share tales of pinstripe lore.

“They had the star players, marquee players, the history, the championships,” Bochy said. “We’re all baseball fans. We’re loyal to who we’re with. You still look at other organizations, and certain ones stand out. None stand out bigger than the Yankees.”

Final showdown with the Yankees. Check.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy (15) high-fives members of the team during player introductions prior to a game against the San Diego Padres on Opening Day at Petco Park in San Diego.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy (15) high-fives members of the team during player introductions prior to a game against the San Diego Padres on Opening Day at Petco Park in San Diego.

Photo: Rob Leiter / MLB Photos

Photo: Rob Leiter / MLB Photos

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Giants manager Bruce Bochy (15) high-fives members of the team during player introductions prior to a game against the San Diego Padres on Opening Day at Petco Park in San Diego.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy (15) high-fives members of the team during player introductions prior to a game against the San Diego Padres on Opening Day at Petco Park in San Diego.

With five months of the regular season to go, Giants first baseman Brandon Belt said he hasn’t noticed anything different about his manager, but realizes nostalgia and reflection will be factors all season long.

“I don’t think it’s one of those things where he says, ‘All right, this is my last year, I’m going to come out here and just have as much fun as possible,’” Belt said. “He’s still as competitive as ever and wants to win ballgames.

“That comes first, but I would have to think he’s trying to take everything in,” Belt said. “He’s been in the game a long time. Knowing this is his last year, I’m sure he wants to take in as much as he can.”

Flannery, who stepped away from baseball after the 2014 World Series, is glad to see his old pal closing in on a well-earned retirement.

Bochy and a trainer look at Brandon Belt after he was hit with a pitch during the fourth inning against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Opening Day.

(Denis Poroy / Getty Images | San Francisco Chronicle)

“He left 40 years ago to play baseball and never had a summer off,” Flannery said. “He’s going to find out — there are some things out here that are pretty cool.”